An upgrade from Tiger to Leopard finally forced me to upgrade from PS7 to CS3 but now I find it impossible to turn off the drivers for my HP 7960 so Photoshop can control the printing. There is a warning to turn it off in the "Printer Dialog" but its not really clear where that dialog is. The printer is grayed out in the Driver dialog of the Printer / Fax set-up.
Searching has revealed the fact HP says all the necessary drivers are pre-installed in Leopard and the printer works OK with printer color management (Driver 4.2.1). I also found this link about the new HP drivers -- LINK - but it doesn't seem to apply.
Anyone else with a HP 7960 facing the same problem?
Chuck, I have the same printer and Ive been playing with it and my brand new iMac all day. I'm waiting for my Photoshop CS3 upgrade disk so all I can tell you is to choose "color synce" and that turns off the printers color management so Photoshop can do it's thing.
Also, if your printer is not showing up in the print & fax applications, click on the + sign and add it in. You might even have to reinstall it. Fingers crossed that this is helpful info.
richdavid wrote:
Chuck, I have the same printer and Ive been playing with it and my brand new iMac all day. I'm waiting for my Photoshop CS3 upgrade disk so all I can tell you is to choose "color synce" and that turns off the printers color management so Photoshop can do it's thing.
What version of PS are you upgrading from? I jumped from PS7 to CS3 and apparently the print dialog in CS3 is the same as what appeared when the CS2 HP plug-in was used.
What printer driver are you using? Mine shows 4.21.
Printer is showing up and printing OK if "Printer Manages Color" is selected in the CS3 print menu. Selecting ColorSync has no effect on the outcome when "Photoshop manages color is selected".
I'm upgrading from PS2 which I was using on my PC. I've just switched to iMac. My printer driver on the MAC is 4.2.1 and it is the same one offered on HP's website. The printer dialog is different looking than the one I was using on my PC, so I'm assuming the MAC driver version is responsible for that. No matter, the printer is working fine!
I read and reread all the information I could find on the printer supplied by the MAC printer software and somewhere it specifically stated to select ColorSync in the PRINTER dialog window in order to shut off the printer from color managing the printing process when using Photoshop's color managing. These are not the exact words so I'll try and find them for you.
I should be getting the PS3 software in the next few days. I'm looking forward to trying out some color managed prints with it. Having said that, I must say that prints directly managed by the printer are looking pretty nice. I use DPP to process my RAW files.
Finally....I sure hope above makes sense. I'm delighted to have this opportunity to offer assistance to one of the finist in this forum.
richdavid wrote:
I read and reread all the information I could find on the printer supplied by the MAC printer software and somewhere it specifically stated to select ColorSync in the PRINTER dialog window in order to shut off the printer from color managing the printing process when using Photoshop's color managing. These are not the exact words so I'll try and find them for you.
I did some additional searching last night and also sent a query to HP. I didn't note the driver number when using Tiger (10.4) but according the the list on the Apple Tiger printer driver page it was 3.3. I also still have my old Jaguar (10.3) G4 with PS7 and it also uses 3.3. So I'm surmising the switch to 4.2.1 driver occurred with the 10.5 upgrade.
I also tried printing from DPP and same problem occured when I attempted to select a printer profile (e.g. HP Photo Premium Plus Photo Paper 8/C). But if I select sRGB as the output profile (file was in sRGB working space) it looks OK, which is logical since a printer managed file would also have sRGB input space. BTW - there is no need to print to see the results as the Print preview mode reveals the results accurately. Its also possible to have more than one preview open at the same time for side-by-side comparison of various paper profiles. Here's what I am seeing printing from CS3 with Photoshop managing color with sRGB or a printer profile selected w. Relative Colorimetric rendering: LINK
Because DPP and CS3 have the same problem with respect to printing per printer profiles it appears related to the 4.2.1 driver change, not CS3 specifically. It will be interesting to hear what HP says. I read somewhere, but didn't bookmark, a message from someone else who encountered the same problem with a different model and was told by HP that turning off the driver was no longer supported, so I do not expect a solution will be forthcoming unless HP updates the driver to include backwards compatibility with the 7980.
I'm on the fence whether or not to upgrade to a larger printer like the B9180 or 8850 when it ships. While I enjoy the convenience and instant gratification of having an ink-jet I don't print enough or sell my work to justify the close to $1,000 cost (all in with supplies and spares) vs just sending the larger prints out to a service bureau.
BTW - if you don't want to wait for CS3 to arrive, just download the demo. Its the full version good for 30 days and all you will need to do is enter your serial number when you get it. I'll be interested to see what you experience when you get it installed.
Very interesting reading this Chuck. I have not downloaded the PS3 demo version yet but that sounds like a perfect idea for tomorrow. My honey-do list is just about completed. Until then here's a few questions, comments and idea's that may or may not do you any good whatsoever. If nothing else this whole exercise is helping me understand things better and it's also helping me with my two fingered typing/keyboard- slaughter.
Question; Is your link above a result of a proofing procedure available in PS3. I need to learn how to do that!
So the critical step appears to be missing- "turning off the printers color management". This is how I used to do that on my PC using the hp photosmart 7960, PS2 ( probably a 3.3 driver version), at the moment I clicked on the Print button in Photoshop PS2, (after selecting all of the proper photoshop color management settings) the printer dialog box would appear and that's when I used to select Properties>Paper/Quality (to match Photoshop) and then the> Color tab, where I then selected> ICM Color Managemet in the color space area, which is/was the "turning off" of the printer's color managing.
If I have this correct, the printer setting to do this now is called "Colorsync". It's found in the print dialog box as one of three choices adjacent to Color:
Macs are different than PCs. The print preview is a functionality built into the OS. In CS3 Mac when you select "print" you get what in PS7 was the "Print with Preview" screen. That's where I turned off printer management by selecting "Postscript Printing" but its gone in CS3. Next you press another "Print" button and get what I am suspecting is the 7960 driver dialog. At the bottom there is a "Preview" button (next to print) which is how you generate the previews.
The problem turning off the printer driver is that there is no "Photoshop manages color" option in the drop-down Paper/Quality menu (where it is for other model HP printers in CS3). There is ColorSync on the list but its not turning off the printer drivers.
OK Chuck,I've got the PS3 - 30 day trial version, loaded and ready to go. In fact I've played with the printing procedure for what I believe is the Photoshop Color managed print procedure for one of my photos. The print far exceeded my expectations so I'm definately hanging on to this HP printer. 8-)
I wish I knew how to make some screen shots for you to show you my settings so here goes an attempt at a step by step.
Opened photo in Photoshop (Photo is a jpeg-RGB mode, already tweaked and ready to print)
Selected File then Print.
In the Photoshop Print dialog box I chose the folowing items;
Color Management
For Print;
I selected - Document (Profile; Adobe RGB 91998)
For Color Handling- Photoshop Manages Colors
For Printer Profile - Working RGB-sRGB iec 1966-2.1
Rendering Intent: Relative Colormetric
I put a check mark in the Black Point box
Selected>Print
The Printer dialog box popped up
I made sure my printer was showing in the printer name box
Preset . Standard
copies > checked collated
Layout. I selected Paper Type/Quality
Paper type: I seleted HP Photo Paper, Glossey
Quality: Best
COLOR: I selected ColorSync
Source> upper tray.
Then I clicked on Print which caused this next dialog box to appear..
"Some Post Script Specific print settings
(Interpolation, Calibration, Encoding) will be
ignored since you are printing to a non-PostScript
Printer."
I clicked on an OK button and the printer did it's thing.
Could it be, that once you choose, " Photoshop manages color" in the Photoshop print dialog, that this now initiates turning off the printer's color managing?
Being a learner here is fun for me. I hope you can make sense at what above says.
The settings I selected were suggested in a Scott Kelby book on Photoshop CS2 that I have.
As noted a few messages above if you select sRGB as the printer profile you are really only sending what the printer would get from Photoshop when the printer manages the colors. sRGB is a working space profile not a printer profile. As I understand it the printer, not PS will be controlling the color.
You should have the HP 7960 paper profiles appearing in that same drop-down menu on the first Print screen. If Photoshop where managing the color you'd want to select the profile for matching the paper you are printing on. That's where things go off the rails because without an instruction to turn its drivers off.
In the CS2 manual pg. 386-387 it says to (Step 4) Select the profile for your output device (i.e. HP7960PremiumPlusPhoto_8ink.icc) then select ColorSync (Step 6) then as Step 7 "Turn off color management fo the printer so that the printer profile settings don't override your profile settings. Every printer has different color management options. If its not clear how to turn off color management, consult your printer manual."
If you take a look at this HP LINK you will find the instructions for how printing management is turned off in the newer the HP Photosmart 8100 and 8400 series photo printers, HP Deskjet 6500 and 6800 series printers, HP Photosmart 2600 and 2700 series and HP Officejet 7300 and 7400 series all-in-one products. There is an additional menu item under "Paper Type / Quality" called "Application Managed Color" which is not showing up for the 7960 - the crux of the problem. Just below that it explains, as I did above, how selecting ColorSync simply tells the printer to use the profile for the paper type you select.
If you can't find the HP 7960 profiles on you machine shoot me a PM with your e-mail and I'll send them to you.
The profiles do show up in the PS3 print dialog box. I've sent you a PM. In the meantime I'm double checking what I though I understood from Scott Kelby's book.
